Heartbreaker(28)

“What list?” I ask, confused.

“In the back of your notebook,” Finn reminds me. “Places you wanted to go. Chicago, London, even Italy.”

I remember it now, those idle hours in school that I’d pass daydreaming of somewhere more exotic. I sigh. “That was just a game. Things change.”

Finn’s smile slips. “So you’re happy here?”

“Sure, why wouldn’t I be?” I curl my fingers around my glass, feeling oddly defensive. “It’s a great town, and it’s important I’m here for Lottie. It’s been really tough on her,” I add. “She takes it all in stride, never complains – well, almost never. But a toddler isn’t easy.”

“I can imagine.”

Thankfully, Finn doesn’t press anymore. Our appetizers arrive, and I pick at my crab-cake. “What about you?” I ask. “How did you wind up on the front cover of Rolling Stone magazine? I mean I always knew you had talent, but you never said you had ambitions like that.”

“I didn’t have ambition at all,” Finn answers wryly. “I was just focused on getting the hell away from here.”

His words cut through me. My heart clenches. “I got that hint,” I reply, my voice cool.

He winces. “I didn’t mean—”

“No, go on. After you left,” I prompt him again, pushing my old betrayal aside. “What happened next?”

He sighs, then leans back in his chair. “I moved around, worked here and there,” he says slowly, and I can tell he’s glossing over something. “Then one night, I picked up my guitar again, and it all came together. After that, I played every chance I got. Until one night in Austin, this guy comes and finds me after the show. Says he’s a manager, that he thinks I’ve got what it takes.” Finn’s expression lifts at the memory. “My buddy, Kyle,” he explains. “He’s a piece of work. Just think of the ultimate Hollywood hustler, and that’s him, right there. He walked in that dive bar wearing three hundred dollar pants, and shoes so shiny you could see your own reflection. I laughed in his face, thought he was crazy.”

“But he wasn’t?”

“Oh no, he is.” Finn chuckles. “But he’s my kind of crazy. Doesn’t take ‘no’ for an answer, or sleep until the deal is signed. Once I decided to give him a shot, it was non-stop. We begged and borrowed studio time, put together a rough demo, then hawked it around to every label in the country. Nobody wanted to give me the time of day.” He shakes his head, a nostalgic smile on his lips. “We would get these notes, like, ‘singer-songwriters aren’t really hot right now, can he get a band, and go more rock?’ Or this one exec, out in LA, he wanted to turn me into a Justin Timberlake guy, you know, with the dance moves and baggy pants.”

I laugh, trying to imagine it. “But you can’t dance!”

“Don’t I know it.” Finn grins at me. “But that’s the business now. Everyone’s trying to make you into something you’re not. Looking back, maybe it’s a good thing I never wanted it so bad. It stopped me making bad choices. You know, fitting myself into a tiny little box just to get ahead. I drove Kyle crazy,” he adds. “Turning contracts down like that. But if I was going to do it, I had to do it my way. No canned songs or big makeover. Just me and the music, the way it’s supposed to be.”

I can see it now in the way he talks: there’s a new ease to him. A confidence, that touch of swagger. Back here in Oak Harbor, Finn was always a renegade, but there was something restless beneath the devil-may-care smile. There was a sharp edge, something straining at the edges to get out. The man sitting so casually across from me tonight is totally comfortable in his own skin. He knows himself, knows he’s been true to who he is.

And there’s nothing sexier.

I take another gulp of champagne. The bubbles rush to my head, but I can’t tell if it’s the alcohol, or Finn’s blue eyes still watching me, dangerously intense.

“Still, I can’t imagine it,” I babble, suddenly feeling off balance. “The fame, the travel. You really made it. One in a million.”

“I got lucky.” Finn dismisses my praise. “That’s the other thing about this business, it really is about being in the right place at the right time. Some Hollywood person happened to hear one of my tracks off the demo, and used it in a TV show. Suddenly, everything blew up overnight. We were all over YouTube, had calls coming in from overseas. You can’t plan for that kind of thing,” he adds, with another modest shrug. “You’d go crazy if you did, trying to make lightning strike twice.”

Lightning.

Was that what the two of us were, I wonder: a bolt from the heavens at the right place, the right time? If he hadn’t been there on the riverbanks that afternoon, if I hadn’t left that New Year’s party on the dark, icy road? So much about us never made sense; maybe all along it was more accident than destiny.

So now I look at him and wonder, would it be so wrong to feel that heat again, to invite the wild jolt to my system, the pure desire I’ve been craving for so long? He was the only one to ever make me feel like this. And if lightning won’t strike twice for me with anyone else, can I really just put the past behind me – or go back, for one last taste?

The waiter arrives to clear our plates, and I realize the meal has passed me by. I’ve barely noticed eating a thing. “May I bring you some dessert menus?” he asks.